ELON – Ryan Budden is a native of Australia and has lived in parts of the world most of us are lucky to have read about.

So, how’s he liking Elon University?

“It’s been an incredible experience,” Budden said. “I love it here.”

Budden, 21, is a junior who’s double-majoring in psychology and entrepreneurship. His family is from Australia, where most of his aunts, uncles and cousins still live.

Of trying to explain to the family where Elon is, Budden said, “I tell them I’m in North Carolina, but that doesn’t narrow it down much.”

Budden’s father works for DuPont – for years the company’s global business director. When Budden was growing up, the family moved often – living in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Seoul, South Korea. He was 15 when they moved to Tennessee.

Budden graduated from high school in Brentwood, Tenn., just outside Nashville, and applied to 13 colleges or universities in the United States or Australia. One of the schools to which he applied was Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., so he went for a visit his senior year of high school.

Budden said he didn’t care for Christopher Newport, but on the way back to Nashville, decided to swing by Elon, a school recommended to him by a close friend. He fell in love with the school and campus.

“I definitely made the right decision,” Budden said of his enrollment at Elon.

Budden is president of the school’s chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha. He recently recruited a number of the fraternity’s members to help the city of Burlington with a cleanup of a stream near the old Moose Lodge. Budden said such volunteer work is indicative of the type projects to which members of Lambda Chi Alpha are committed.

“I’ve learned a lot about fraternities since coming here,” Budden said. “Before I got involved, I thought it was the stereotypical thing of frat boys doing nothing but sitting around drinking. I met a lot of cool guys who didn’t match that stereotype.”

John Gardner is Elon’s fraternity adviser for Lambda Chi Alpha and said the work Budden does to recruit members for events like stream cleanups is indicative of the respect he’s earned.

“To get 30 or 40 young men out on a Saturday morning to clean a river is not an easy thing to do, but it’s an important thing to do,” Gardner said. “Ryan is certainly up to the task.”

Gardner said he’s worked with Budden the past two years and never ceases to be impressed by his commitment to both Elon and Lambda Chi Alpha.

“Ryan is a leader,” Gardner said. “He always has the best interests of the organization in mind. He’s willing to do not only the big things, but also the little things.”

Page 2 of 2 - Budden’s parents, Nigel and Marilynne, now live in Philadelphia, close to DuPont’s headquarters in Wilmington, Del. His twin brother and only sibling, Myall, is a student at the University of Tampa.

Of the places he lived while growing up, Budden said, “I love Asia, in general. Asia is so inter-connected with technology.”

Having lived in Seoul, he’s also got some firsthand knowledge of the situation involving the tensions between North Korea and the United States. Budden said while living in Seoul, he was reminded that North Korea has more than 2,000 missiles aimed at the city.

“What’s going on over there is nothing new,” Budden said. “You don’t worry about it. For whatever reason, they’ve just decided to publicize it now.”

Exactly what he’ll be doing after graduating from Elon next spring, Budden isn’t sure. He admitted to being pretty stoked that after a long struggle, he was recently granted his green card.

This summer he’s traveling to New York City for an internship in currency trading in the heart of the city’s financial district. That’s quite a switch from last summer, when Budden completed an internship at an addiction rehabilitation clinic in Sydney, Australia.

Steve Huffman can be reached at shuffman@thetimesnews.com or 336-506-3045.